Bruce Girrell on mon 23 oct 00
After reading Larry Phillips's response to this thread (he reminded me that
it is often referred to as the "Utah teapot" and that it served as a
lighting model test bench), I decided I'd better do some checking to see if
I had made any serious mistakes.
I found the full story at
http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1/software/teapot.html
I found that I was correct about Jim Blinn's early use of the pot, though he
didn't originally digitize it, but was wrong about its raison d'etre. It is,
in fact, a simple shape to define, not a complicated one. As the
above-referenced page states:
"... back in the early days, there were no 3D modeling packages and
everything was digitized by hand or sketched on graph paper and the numbers
typed in using a text editor. If you were working on texture mapping
algorithms, ray tracing or some such work, then any source of free data was
welcome.
Aside from that, people have pointed out that [the teapot] is a useful
object to test with. It's instantly recognizable, it has complex topology,
it self-shadows, there are hidden surface issues, it has both convex and
concave surfaces - as well as 'saddle points'. It doesn't take much storage
space - it's rumored that some of the early pioneers of computer graphics
could type in the teapot from memory."
So there you have it.
Bruce "I stand corrected" Girrell
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